IT'S HERE IT'S HERE!! - 3D printout of a Phantom 3 antenna booster

[Giuseppe Finizia]

Hi,
I just tried Giusseppe's copper Booster. Result at an area in the city with high interference, distance where sognal lost:

• Stock Antenna: 1400 mt.
• DYI Aluminium Windsurf Antenna: 2800 mt.
• Giusseppe's copper antenna: 3900 mt.

I believe no need to make any comment.
Thanks Giusseppe.

You are welcome domdoha! Thank you for your feedback.

For everyone who is interested in my Range Booster, I can sell them a ready to use and nicely hand-finished 3D printed Range Booster with a seamless aluminum coating already applied (€19,00 + shipment fees).

Moreover, I am currently producing a more effective type of Range Booster provided with a seamless High Quality Copper Layer (€23,00 + shipment fees).

With it you can reach even more distant targets and you will get better results expecially when you are piloting your drone in an area with sparse trees and medium size obstacles.

You will be greatly impressed by the huge improvements that these Range Boosters will give to your flights with the DJI Phantom 3 or Inspire 1 drones.

Send me a message to [email protected] if you want to get it!

 

[Giuseppe Finizia]

How are you able to verify that your copper windsurfer is a more effective type of Range Booster or the aluminum one? Do you have test results? If so can we see them? I would love to see the differences.

Hi David, don't worry about my products... I am sure you are very busy to sell your stuff.

My "test results" are all the very satisfied people who daily write me to say words like these:

"Hello Giuseppe,
so today i did my first flight with the new update and your copper range extender aswell.
One word: AWESOME!
Thank you for your awesome product. Worth its price 100%."

 

[Giuseppe Finizia]

okay, so no, you don't have any definitive data. That was all I was curious about. And yes, I receive testimonials from each of my customers however, I don't feel the need to throw them in anyones faces. Nor do I have the need to lie or falsely advertise their ability. My products speaks for itself. I do however find it to be completely hilarious that you feel the need to post over EVERY post I make in addition to following me to other forums. So you can knock off your snarky attitude. Its a competitive scenario that I'm fully aware of, but you sir are ridiculous. You should stop lying to people.

David, your provocations do not deserve any response. They just make me laugh!

 

[Steve Shead]

Mine arrived today - gonna test 'em out tomorrow!

There wasn't a "free" spacer in the package - but it didn't mention that in the deal anyway.

 

[Steve Shead]

I just added it. I just built 2 new Printers so I wanted to give back some. I often give away free gifts to my customers. I'm sorry you missed out on the sale & Free Gift. I'm sure your going to love your windsurfer tho You should check out my Motor Guards. I'm Getting a lot of great reviews on them.

No problem here - I love the fact that you give back when you can. I'll check out your motor guards as well.

 

[MattyDread]

Dave, can you post some pics/ info of these motor guards here, please.

 

[P3ChinaSkies]

Can someone more scientific than me, explain what occurs when the drone is behind you at a distance and the wind surfer concave side is facing the opposite direction? Seems to me there would be major signal lost as the antennae would be 100% shielded from the drone. ???

 

[Giuseppe Finizia]

Hi guys, since I have contacted a new supplier for an even better copper foil with a slightly cheaper cost, I can now sell my Range Booster with Copper Layer for a lower price: €22,00 EUR [$25,20 USD] + shipping (see my previous post for some photo of my Range Boosters).

Send me a message to [email protected] for any kind of information.

 

[Steve Shead]

I just added it. I just built 2 new Printers so I wanted to give back some. I often give away free gifts to my customers. I'm sorry you missed out on the sale & Free Gift. I'm sure your going to love your windsurfer tho You should check out my Motor Guards. I'm Getting a lot of great reviews on them.

Finally got to test out the Windsurfer - got an extra 1300ft out of it then noticed a helicopter around my height and bottled out - and - I was standing between a few trees - looking forward to an LOS flight - but definitely got a significant boost.

One question though - feel a little silly asking - I couldn't work out where the two grommets clipped to.

 

[Steve Shead]

It will show you how to use the clips.
Glad I could help you get some more distance.

Ah - now that makes more sense. I didn't have the antenna's fully upright - I'll try that next time. Thanks for sharing!

 

[RF Guy]

Wouldn't matter if it is copper, aluminum foil or chewing gum foil, it would work the same. I'll post definitive range testing on these using real test equipment. The concern is that:
#1: The design isn't correct electronically. We are not just reflecting light here. Ideal spacing from the radiating element needs to be about 2 inches for correct operation. #2. Adding a reflector like this will radically alter the impedance of the antennas. They no longer resonate correctly. This makes the SWR go up... and the transmitter has to reduce it's power in order to not over-heat. This works against further range.
I'm not a po-po'er here, I just want to get an optimized design going. If you add a reflector, you have to modify the radiating elements in order to keep the antenna resonant. That's a given. We are seeing a marginal improvement with the stock design, but I'm sure the output transistors are heating up more in the controller - and with a correct design, range should be vastly improved. 9dBi gain is 8 X the TX power focused forward and reduction to less than 1% going backwards.

 

[kingkong90210]

A big thanks to Giuseppe for making his design available on Thingiverse.
I found another design though a German forum. The difference is pretty massive - I hope to test the difference in the coming days once I have the suitable foil.View attachment 29339

Have u got the link for the big one?

 

[WetDog]

How many hours did that print take?

That would depend on too many factors to give a accurate reply - type of plastic, resolution, infill amounts and most importantly the printer. With something typical like PLA, a low res version (all you really need) with, say a 50% infill for strength would give you a wild assed guess of 2-3 hours on a printer like a Taz 4 or 5.

YMMV.

 

[msinger]

That would depend on too many factors to give a accurate reply - type of plastic, resolution, infill amounts and most importantly the printer. With something typical like PLA, a low res version (all you really need) with, say a 50% infill for strength would give you a wild assed guess of 2-3 hours on a printer like a Taz 4 or 5.

YMMV.

A blast from the past

 

[WetDog]

Wouldn't matter if it is copper, aluminum foil or chewing gum foil, it would work the same. I'll post definitive range testing on these using real test equipment. The concern is that:
#1: The design isn't correct electronically. We are not just reflecting light here. Ideal spacing from the radiating element needs to be about 2 inches for correct operation. #2. Adding a reflector like this will radically alter the impedance of the antennas. They no longer resonate correctly. This makes the SWR go up... and the transmitter has to reduce it's power in order to not over-heat. This works against further range.
I'm not a po-po'er here, I just want to get an optimized design going. If you add a reflector, you have to modify the radiating elements in order to keep the antenna resonant. That's a given. We are seeing a marginal improvement with the stock design, but I'm sure the output transistors are heating up more in the controller - and with a correct design, range should be vastly improved. 9dBi gain is 8 X the TX power focused forward and reduction to less than 1% going backwards.

His ** looks ** like the 'typical' Windsurfer design that has been bandied about for some time. I have one and it does work - both in range tests and testing relative strength using a have decent meter. SWR is going to be hard to test but I just recall I have a stock antenna mated to a SMA connector (that exhbits decent SWR by itself). I can stick the Windsurfer on it and see what happens (IT-24 meter). Unfortunately, my day job is going to interfere with this for a bit - but I should be able to post soon. Thanks for the idea!

I would also think that if the windsurfers were problematic we would hear complaints about RC failures here (we hear complaints about everything else.....). Now, one could pop the back of the RC and put an IR thermometer on the output stage to see if any major changes occurred.... Blasted day job...

 

[WetDog]

OK, in reply to RFGuy's perfectly valid concern about Windsurfer designs messing up the SWR (Standing Wave Ratio). I've conducted this quick and dirty test:

- Standard DJI antennas mated to an RP-SMA connector. These were created to check the performance of the stock antenna vs. generic omni antennas vs. the various higher gain antennas. Basically, I removed the antenna from the RC and carefully mated the connector back to the stock cable and glued the thing back together again. Not going to win any design awards, but it appears to work.
- Attached one antenna to a Rig Expert IT-24 2.4 GHz analyzer. This is a pretty good device, certainly not as accurate or as sensitive as a $10000 spectrum analyzer but much easier to sneak into my workshop than said analyzer (wife - "what's THAT?", me - "Oh, nothing, just picked it up at a flea market", wife - "um, right....")

- control - antenna directly hooked to IT-24
- test setup - both antennas hooked to the Windsurfer** to sort of mimic the actual configuration.

I tested both antennas - they are slightly different, probably because of SMA connectors. Visual inspection of the antennas indicates that they are the same physically.



Stock Antennas



Note the slightly different characteristics.

Antennas hooked to the Windsurfer



There are some slight changes in the SWR characteristics as you would expect. Note that at 2.4 GHz, anything can change antenna characteristics somewhat. Holding the antenna, placing it near metal, dogs barking. The important thing to note is that the SWR at roughly 2.4 GHz where the Phantom transmits and receives is very close to the ideal of 1:1 and doesn't really change with or without the Windsurfer. Thus, it would be unlikely to load the output section of the transmitter and toast it.

Whew....

Other bits to consider: Most modern transmitters have something called a 'fold back circuit' which senses high SWR and either shuts the transmitter down entirely or decreases the output power. I would think that the Phantom RC transmitter does incorporate this circuitry - it's probably baked into the radio IC that DJI buys, but that is another assumption (and the first three letters of the word assumption are...?). Perhaps they don't bother since you aren't supposed to take off or otherwise modify the antenna in any way.

But I would think that if the Windsurfers (or the other aftermarket antennas) clobbered the output of the transmitter we would see the usual Sturm Und Drang of upset flyers around here. Keep in mind that RFGuy's warning is perfectly valid. You are messing with a complicated, somewhat fragile bit of electronics here. Electronics have to obey the laws of Physics and There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

YMMV. Professional Driver on a Closed Course. Remember the Alamo and FCC Part 15 rules. Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

** Windsurfer is one I bought off of Amazon a while back. It has the same general dimensions as other ones I've seen. The reflector is thin alumunized tape.

 

[WetDog]

A blast from the past

What!? My Taz 5 is old? Uh Oh....

(shakes head sadly, looks at Lulzbot website at the Taz 6, sighs)

 

[msinger]

What!? My Taz 5 is old? Uh Oh....

(shakes head sadly, looks at Lulzbot website at the Taz 6, sighs)

You're blowing the dust off a question that was answered over a year ago

But, yes, it's time to upgrade your printer

 

[WetDog]

You're blowing the dust off a question that was answered over a year ago

But, yes, it's time to upgrade your printer

Oh yeah, you're right. But at least I checked it out. Didn't think I was loading the amps but until you test you never know.

Printer is probably going to have to wait a bit. Close to exceeding wife expenditure tolerance levels. Never, ever do that....

 

[msinger]

I was close to buying the Taz 6 a few months ago, but I bought a MakerGear M2 instead. Love it.